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A review by bookapotamus
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
5.0
This book! All the feels... I will be haunted for a while thinking about this one. What a roller coaster of emotions...Theo. So naive at some points in his life, so childlike, yet so many adult situations, and thoughts running around in his head. I just can't. This kid is so, so troubled and it's gut wrenching to read his story.
The Goldfinch is a "slightly off-kilter coming-of-age" story. When Theodore Decker is still a young boy, something tragic happens and his entire life follows this crazy spiral of incidents that ultimately change the course of his life, and mold and shape him into who he eventually becomes. I was terrified for him, happy for him, saddened for him. I laughed with him (and his friend Boris - my new most-favorite literary character!), I cried for him, I wanted to scream at him and shake some sense into him. There is death, drugs, mystery, privilege, history and art, family drama, laughter, and love - so many subjects are covered in this saga of Theo's life.
So. Many. Emotions. It took me a loooong time to finally sit down and read this one, and I guess I needed to be prepared for the emotions! I thought I needed to prepare myself for the almost 800 pages (which is why it took me so long to read this) but nope! Once I got started I sailed though - I wanted to find out what was happening after every twist and turn, and then find it all out again after the next one - I couldn't put it down. Nor did I want to.
This book really resonated with me as an artist as well. I found myself breaking out my textbooks from art school to view some of the paintings they talked about throughout the story. This book felt like a warm hug to me as I fell in love with the language in itself. The description of things is so thorough, from a room, to a person, to a thought ... I was sad throughout a lot of the book, but I was even more sad when it ended.
The Goldfinch is a "slightly off-kilter coming-of-age" story. When Theodore Decker is still a young boy, something tragic happens and his entire life follows this crazy spiral of incidents that ultimately change the course of his life, and mold and shape him into who he eventually becomes. I was terrified for him, happy for him, saddened for him. I laughed with him (and his friend Boris - my new most-favorite literary character!), I cried for him, I wanted to scream at him and shake some sense into him. There is death, drugs, mystery, privilege, history and art, family drama, laughter, and love - so many subjects are covered in this saga of Theo's life.
So. Many. Emotions. It took me a loooong time to finally sit down and read this one, and I guess I needed to be prepared for the emotions! I thought I needed to prepare myself for the almost 800 pages (which is why it took me so long to read this) but nope! Once I got started I sailed though - I wanted to find out what was happening after every twist and turn, and then find it all out again after the next one - I couldn't put it down. Nor did I want to.
This book really resonated with me as an artist as well. I found myself breaking out my textbooks from art school to view some of the paintings they talked about throughout the story. This book felt like a warm hug to me as I fell in love with the language in itself. The description of things is so thorough, from a room, to a person, to a thought ... I was sad throughout a lot of the book, but I was even more sad when it ended.